Pedal Steel Guitar Tuning Keys

A steel guitar hawaiian.

Pedal steel guitar tuning keys.

Today non pedal and pedal steel guitarists of all skill levels share their knowledge with many other players every day. With the need to have some versatility in playing songs in different keys and scales the addition of an extra neck tuned to a specific tuning seemed to be. And every dominant 7th chord comes from some particular key. The chart below shows all the relationships.

Sta tite mandolin machines 304 series. Tuning the pedal steel guitar. The most common pedal steel guitars have 10 strings followed by universal 12 string instruments which purport to offer the same versatility as a double 10 string instrument 8 stringed instruments were very popular in the 1950s and 1960s they are less popular nowadays. The pedal steel guitar is a very unique instrument.

So this tuning is called the e9 tuning. Keys now let s say that we want to start on a different note than c but we want to play the major pattern t t s t t t s. The pedal steel guitar is usually tuned to either e9 or c6 or both in the case of a double neck but there are other tunings. The steel guitar is known for its portamento capabilities sliding smoothly from one note to another emulating characteristics of the human singing voice.

The tuning of the open strings more or less makes up the notes of the e9 chord an e9 chord is spelled e g b d f. Note range of the steel guitar. Keys are explained and how to play scales in different keys on the pedal steel guitar is explained. Every key has a natural dominant 7th chord.

It has actually evolved over the years dating back to the early 1930 s with the electric lap steel. Kīkākila is any type of guitar that is played while moving a steel bar or similar hard object against plucked strings a concept somewhat akin to playing a guitar with one finger the bar. The pedal steel itself has four legs several foot operated pedals and often multiple knee operated levers that bend certain strings up and down. If none of this makes any sense to you it s ok just remember that a dominant 7th means to flat the 7th note a half tone.

Pedal steel guitars are played by pressing a steel bar on top of the pedal steel guitar strings with one hand while plucking them with fingerpicks on the other hand. The e9 neck of the steel guitar has a range that starts with an open string b that is 2 b s below middle c.